Sustainability in the Classroom Workshop

June 19-21, 2012

This workshop was made possible through a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Education. The workshop has three tracks: Organic Farming/Gardening, Climate Change/Marcellus Shale and a workshop titled “Contemplative Experiences . . . in the service of the earth.”

The participants will spend a half-day (on two days) at local organic farms. Three Sisters Farm has been growing and marketing organic produce since 1989. Here you will find 5-acres of gardens that incorporates the permaculture design principles on their farm. After an in-depth overview of their operation, participants will be assigned tasks and begin their ‘chores’.

The next day we’ll travel to Ellen Benek’s farm outside of Sandy Lake. In addition to an impressive organic garden, the Benek’s produce their own milk, yogurt and cheese from their goats. Once again, depending on what needs done at this time of the year will determine our chores for the morning.

Dr. Randall Wiesenmayer, professor of science education at West Virginia University will begin with the basics of the greenhouse effect and the presentation of evidence that the Earth’s climate is warming. But what mechanisms are causing these changes? Is this just a natural cycle like those that have occurred during the past millions of years, or are human activities the cause?

The last part of the workshop will be Steve Van Matre’s Contemplative Experience workshop. This workshop begins Wednesday evening from 6:30 – 9:30 PM and continues Thursday 9 AM – 5 PM. Steve will conduct this powerful workshop, as participants will have the opportunity to examine their personal relationship with the natural world.

Cost: $110, includes two nights lodging, lunch and dinner on Tuesday, breakfast, lunch and dinner on Wednesday and breakfast and lunch on Thursday, instruction, books and materials.

Contemplative Experience. . .in the service of the Earth.

June 20-21, 2012

In these busy times it is easy to get so involved in our daily activities that we lost sight of where we are going in our lives. This workshop is designed to help us consider our personal relationship with the natural world and our role in the movement to sustain it. This is a time to ponder why we do what we do, and refine our own personal quest to be of service to both the planet’s natural systems and communities and its human passengers.

The environmental movement is the largest movement in human history, cutting across all geographic, political and spiritual boundaries. So where do we fit into that movement personally? What is the abstraction we champion, and how can we share it with others?

Cost: $145/person – includes workshop, Wednesday night lodging, dinner on Wednesday and breakfast and lunch on Thursday. The workshop is from 6:30 – 9:30 PM on Wednesday and 9 AM – 5 PM on Thursday. Once we receive your registration and payment, confirmation will be sent to you with detailed information about the workshop.

Interpretive Design & the dance of experience Workshop

June 22-23, 2012

Join us for a special workshop with Steve Van Matre.

Interpretation is the craft of enriching the experience of leisure visitors in places established for the public good. The world’s parks and preserves, gardens and galleries, museums and monuments are the jewels of our societies, set aside because they represent the natural and cultural treasures we want to celebrate today and share with others tomorrow. As a result, they are mission-driven places which also need to justify and garner support for what they are protecting. An interpreter translates the natural and cultural language of such places for its visitors, while immersing them in the essence of its purpose.

Interpretive designers create the leisure journeys that interpreters implement. Just as we have designers today for the buildings, signs, grounds, exhibits, and other components of our mission-driven public places, we need “interpretive designers” who focus on the most important component, the actual experience of the visitors who come. This is a new profession which works with the whole experience that other designers only facilitate in part. Interpretive designers help sites mold their interpretive facilities around the outcomes they intend rather than the structures they inherit. These designers create the interrelated experiential vehicles of interpretive service.

Interpretive Design is for all those who assist visitors in getting to know their public jewels – leisure sites from Aquaria to Zoos – and who aim to enrich those visitors’ experiences in meaningful and memorable ways.

Cost: $225/person – includes workshop, Friday night lodging, lunch and supper on Friday and breakfast and lunch on Saturday. Workshop is from 9 AM – 5 PM on both Friday and Saturday. Once we receive your registration and payment, confirmation will be sent to you with detailed information about the workshop.

Hardwood Lumber Grading Short Course

July 23-26, 2012

The value of ‘rules conscious’ employees is a more carefully manufactured product, a more profitable yield from the log, and a better sense of the value of the lumber being handled. This four-day course will include a thorough study and explanation of the National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA) Rules Book, emphasizing the basics of hardwood lumber inspection.

This popular course gives yardmen, sawyers, edgermen, sales and office staff, and management level personnel an introduction to lumber inspection. Our instructor is Barry Kibbey, inspector and instructor from the NHLA.

The cost of the course is $349 and includes ten meals, lunch on Monday through lunch on Thursday, three nights lodging, instruction and materials. You can register by downloading a registration flyer from McKeever’s website. From the home page, click the calendar tab, and then click on Hardwood Lumber Grading Short Course. You can also contact the center for more information.